Republic Act No 9262 of 2004 or the Anti-Violence Against Women and their Children Act provides protection for abused women and their children against their partners, former male partners or those they were/are dating. Although this is a welcome change, its implementation and impact have not been very extensive especially, for the very women who should be benefitting from it.
Through funds coming from the European Union’s European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR), ASSIST partnered with the Women’s Crisis Center (WCC) and the National Network of Family Violence Prevention Programs (NNFVPP) for a project entitled “USE RA 9262 – Undertaking Survivors’ Experience in Accessing RA 9262.” The project aimed to establish a monitoring system on RA 9262 anchored on women’s experiences and on the enhanced capabilities of non-government organizations handling domestic violence, leading to the effective implementation of the law that works for female victims/survivors in reclaiming their rights.
The project was able to accomplish a number of activities during its run. Surveys and forums were conducted to raise awareness and determine the root causes of violations – an Alternative Monitoring System Portal was created and became a platform of information exchange between stakeholders & gauged the implementation rate of RA 9262. Capacity building trainings were also conducted to ensure proper use of the system and strengthen institutions. Furthermore, a gap assessment report, a training manual for service providers and a web portal were released through which region-based advocates encoded details on VAWC cases.
In 2008, the Philippines National Police (PNP) reported that there has been a 21% increase in the number of cases of Violence Against Women (VAW) from that in 2007. Although the Philippines enacted several laws against Violence Against Women, access to and full implementation of these laws leave much to be desired. In August 2009, the government passed another Act – the “Magna Carta of Women (RA9710)”, with the expectation for it to be an umbrella legal enactment to promote gender equality and ensure the protection of women. The Magna Carta calls for training on human rights and gender sensitivity for all government personnel involved and all local government units (LGUs), and to establish a violence against women (VAW) desk in every barangay to ensure that VAW cases are fully addressed in a gender-responsive manner.
ASSIST, in partnership with WFS (Women’s Feature Service Philippines), WomenLEAD (Women’s Legal Education, Advocacy & Defense Foundation Inc.) and WCC (Women’s Crisis Center) collaborated to produce the “Justice and Healing Project” with the main goal of educating & capacitating the various components of the judicial system to be able to deliver rights-based and gender sensitive services with respect to VAW cases. The activities carried out to achieve these include barangay forums, stakeholder mapping and training for public-private prosecutors, paralegal and legal practitioners on the issue at hand. Moreover, the project included the development of both Legal Monographs on Gender Legal Issues and Protocol for Legal Service Provision.
Through the sessions provided by the project, NGOs are now better equipped & united to offer legal & psycho-social assistance to female victims. They are in constant dialogue and have worked closely with the government for the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. Prosecutors, lawyers and other members of the judiciary are sensitized & capacitated to adopt a gender-sensitive, victim-centric, CEDAW compliant, inquiry process while local authorities, the police, and communities at barangay level are united and continuously working towards a violence-free barangay.
The Community-Based Monitoring System (CBMS) is a tool introduced by UNDP and DILG to local government units to diagnose the extent and causes of poverty in an area, to help in formulating policies and programs, to aid in identifying target beneficiaries and to facilitate assessment of the impact of those policies and programs. In Misamis Oriental, which registered a 28.5% poverty incidence, 14 municipalities have started to adopt and implement the CBMS to attain poverty reduction. However, those municipalities cannot fully utilize the system due to lack of capacity and resources to validate and process the data into a development planning tool with a geographic information system.
Jointly funded by STEAG State Power Inc. and DEG, EMPOWER aimed to achieve economic growth in the region by enabling local government units to acquire necessary technical skills and know-how in utilizing development tools. The project addressed the gaps in fully utilizing development tools particularly, in transferring and sustaining practical knowledge in using CBMS and GIS.
The project’s focus was on updating the database and information system of the Provincial Planning Office of Misamis Oriental and Cagayan de Oro City Planning Office. Six municipalities from Misamis Oriental namely, Tagoloan, Jasaan, El Salvador, Medina, Opol, and Laguindingan, had been designated to be pilot areas for CBMS implementation considering the areas’ strategic importance to the industrialization and eco-tourism potential of Northern Mindanao. The works under this project include Training and Assessment of CBMS implementation, Determination of GIS requirements and correspondent GIS Technical Trainings, CBMS and GIS integration, data processing, analysis and publication of case studies.
Limited access to services and information on international markets requirements has caused a lack of awareness and understanding of food safety systems in the Cambodian rice industry. This prevents local food processors from realizing the potential in the EU and US markets. Moreover, modern trading conditions require food businesses, including rice mills, to demonstrate their commitment to food safety through an appropriate management program.
IFC has been supporting the development of the Cambodian rice sector for years, aiming to make the milling and trading industry more competitive, by playing a key role in accelerating the transformation of the industry through several project interventions. In this food safety pilot project, part of the larger Cambodia Rice Sector Support Project, ASSIST collaborated with IFC to enhance the awareness and capacity of mill enterprises to implement food safety management systems. Implemented in two phases, Phase 1 included Food Safety / Occupational Health and Safety gap assessments and Phase 2 covered the Food Safety / Occupational Health and Safety implementation.
ASSIST specifically undertook a detailed assessment of these mills’ status and capacities, produced a business plan/project proposal for the implementation processes, raised awareness and conducted a National Food Safety Dissemination workshop. Over the course of the program, 21 rice mills were assessed, 12 participated and received certification for food safety management systems (GMP/HACCP/ISO22000) and occupational health and safety (OHSAS18001).
Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are key to the Philippines’ economic growth and development. They accounted for 99.5% of the total business establishments in the country in 2016 and 14% of these MSMEs were engaged in manufacturing and food processing. With a vital role in the global economy, it is essential to push MSMEs to converting traditional operational processes into green and sustainable practices.
In 2016, the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) and the Department of Trade and Industry of the Philippines launched a collaborative initiative to develop business case studies for greening practices of MSME operations, which was executed by ASSIST and GGGI. This study was conducted with the aim to encourage MSMEs in the Philippines to start incorporating greening practices in their production/manufacturing processes by sharing and promoting stories from pioneering individuals on how their committed actions to protect the surrounding environment and resources were beneficial financially and socially.
The case study contains assessment results of ongoing best greening efforts being practiced among twelve MSMEs from selected food processing industries: coffee, cacao, processed fruits and nuts. Greening efforts taken from the twelve include waste recycling and reusing, energy saving and emission reduction, water saving, and innovation and research.
The standards of work health and safety were brought to the forefront of the public eye after the collapse of the Rana Plaza Building in Bangladesh in April 2013. The commercial structure housed a garment factory and its collapse resulted in numerous injuries and a death toll of 1,127. In the aftermath, it called for improved working conditions and better compliance with factory safety standards.
The IFC Fire and Life Safety Risk Profiling (FLSRP) Project aimed to support the Better Work Programme – a partnership project of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) – in its objective to improve labour conditions and compliance of standards by participating garment and footwear factories in developing countries. The project aided Better Work in reviewing its tools and approaches to assess and remedy fire and building safety issues in each of the countries in which it operates; ultimately to prevent or mitigate the impact of future incidents like the 2013 disaster in Bangladesh.
FLSRP involved the conduct of sectoral-level risk assessments on fire and building safety in garment and footwear factories to develop respective risk profiles for Cambodia, Haiti, Indonesia, Jordan, Lesotho, Nicaragua, and Vietnam. Major activities included research and desk review, benchmarking, report review, site selection and inspections, stakeholder discussions, data compilation and lessons-learnt workshops in each of the target countries.
